How and why polyglots don’t confuse languages

MICHAL: welcome to Poland, we are in Poznan and we have the pleasure and opportunity to speak with 3 great polyglots, can you introduce yourselves please?

RICHARD: my name is Richard Simcott and I am from the UK, I have been in Poland now for a month trying to improve my polish and my passion in life is to study different languages

SUSANNA: my name is Susanna Zaraysky and I live in California and I just arrived yesterday to meet with these 2 guys for the first time and I actually don’t speak Polish and I have just arrived in Poland and Poznan is a beautiful city

(Hello everyone! I’ll speak in Italian because these two have already spoken in English. So I will speak in my mother tongue. My name is Luca Lampariello and I’m here with these guys. I work as a language coach. Like Richard and Susanna, I like languages. We’re here together in Poland to make videos and to have fun.)

RICHARD (American accent): Well, I guess I’d say that what I have done all my life is to use languages and accents all the time to make jokes or just practice using the language in different ways and I found that that’s a thing that I have to do every day … and that’s what I do every day so different people,and in my life generally in Macedonia I would use 10 languages maybe in a week, and then for work also I would us an extra maybe 6-7 languages and that helps me practice all the time

SUSANNA (English): If I know I have a TV interview in Spanish the night before I won’t listen to music in Portuguese or anything else in any other language because it has happened to me that in a TV interview in Spanish I stop..because I have Russian or some other language in my brain so that is kind of difficult. Another thing with confusion is that I have that with Russian..I have been working right now in Sarajevo, Bosnia and I do sometimes confuse these 2 languages , it is just human, stopping in the middle of a sentence and think about what word to use..What happens is that I try to distinguish ..so I get used to people’s voice in each language..

(After these well articulated responses… There are people who think that it’s impossible not to mix up languages. They tell me “Luca, I only speak two languages and it’s total confusion.” But in my case, it’s always a question of how you learn your languages. If you learn one language after another, meaning that you don’t need to learn 4 at once. For example, if you learn Portuguese, Romanian and Italian at the same time, you will confuse them. So knowing how to distinguish languages is really about how you structure the way you study and how you organize your life).

(For example, Richard was saying… Now you see Richard in front of the video camera, but in real life, he speaks to the bicycle in Polish, to the gong in Chinese. He speaks all the languages he can in all different situations. This is how it works when you have studied languages well. I also think that languages are stored in different parts of your brain. If you are able to … You choose which language to use with which person and you are not confised because you are only activating one part of your brain. I don’t confuse my languages, because, like Richard, I speak them every day at a professional level for my work. There are some languages which are stronger than others).

(For example, German and Dutch have some similarities, like Spanish and Portuguese. My Spanish and German are my dominant languages. So there are some small interferences with Dutch and Portuguese but with time, you learn to distinguish the places and people where you use certain languages. You separate them in your mind and it becomes a normal thing to maintain and coordinate 10-20 languages. It’s not a miracle, it’s just about knowing how to do it. I know that with you, Susanna, I speak in English, with him in French and with him in Polish. They languages are separated in my brain. I have spoken too much. Italians are verbose, they talk and talk…)

(After 5 beers, that’s not the problem:) I’ve discussed this with my friends. When I go to the Polyglot Bar, I have a brain melt. You talk to one friend for a bit… And then, you’re confused. If you go there to speak in just one language, then you are best off to sit down, take a notebook and something to write with and practice one or two languages. I go there because I have a lot of friends there and at the end, it’s total confusion. In a 10 minute period, I may turn to speak to someone in Russian and then I turn and speak to someone else in Chinese. You can really get confused there).

(It depends on how you do it. If you go there to relax and speak in just one language, that’s fine. But I go there to speak to everyone. It’s more of a social thing than a language practice thing. If you really want to improve your level in a language, you should spend the whole day with one person speaking in that langauge. You get up in the morning, eat breakfast, ask them about their shower, and then you have a chat about the meaning of life… you should spend the whole day together, maybe even a week. But a whole day in one language, and then another one. If you do a 100 languages in one evening, your brain will melt).

(Maybe you will learn something, but it’s nicer to spend the entire day together with someone if you want to improve your language level. This is my idea. You can do a lot of things, don’t do just one thing. Do several. Maybe spend the whole day with one person, and then another day with someone else in another language and then you go to the Polyglot Bar. And that’s how you manage to do all of these things together).

(We could still get Alzheimer’s disease. We are joking about this. But researchers say that speaking various languages could delay Alzheimer’s disease and other things. Since I’ve been speaking various languages at a professional level, before it was just a hobby, my brain has been working much faster. This isn’t just for languages, but for other things too.

For example, yesterday, I was talking to one of your friends and she said to me “Luca talks a lot”. She was still on her first idea and I was already thinking of idea number four. It’s not as calm or relaxing for the people I am talking to because I think so fast, but for preventing Alzheimer’s this is a good idea if I can be 80 or 90 years old. Because if I have 5 beers everytime I go to the Polyglot Bar after going there for 50 years…)

(Since you speak six Slavic languages, Russian, Bulgarian, Czech, Polish, Macedonian and the language you learned in Sarajevo, what do you do? That’s six languages. I know that when I was in Macedonia, people spoke to me in Macedonia and I understoon them but I responded in Serbo-Croatian. What do you do to not get the languages confused?)

(Actually, it’s very difficult with Slavic languages. Here in Poland I am learning Polish. I have to make a big effort to communicate with people in Polish. So I if were speaking in Bulgarian or in Serbo-Croatian right now, it would be very difficult. It’s very difficult. But in England or at home in Macedonia, it’s easier because I speak in English with my daughter, French, German and Spanish, and then I speak in Macedonian with my wife. So it’s easier. But here I am trying to learn Polish and I have to think hard because I have a lot of Polish words in my head. And the result is a mess with the other languages).

(I know that when I am thinking, my thoughts come in various languages in my head. But when I am speaking to people I have to always figure out which person speaks which language so I know in which language to speak to them. I am the one who has to translate my thoughts in my head. Do you two have the same thing? Or do you stick to one language when you are thinking and speaking, be it French, Spanish or some other language?)

(I change languages all the time. For example, my daughter could speak to me in English, French, Spanish or German or even in Macedonian. So these are the five languages of the house. And on the street, I could speak in Albanian, Turkish, or Serbo-Croatian (“our language”)).

(So if I go to Bulgaria or in Greece, I try to speak to people in Bulgarian or Greek. It’s always like that in my life. When I was in university in England, France, Spain or the Czech Republic, it was the same thing. I spoke to many people in various languages, German, Spanish, Czech, Russian. This helps a lot).

(The problem is when I speak to people. Richard is an exception, but usually when I am speaking Spanish, I am speaking to a Spaniard. When I am speaking in French, I am speaking to a French person. I usually use languages with native speakers. I like to speak to polyglots, but there are few people who know how to speak a lot of languages, so I don’t get confused. For example, my Catalan friend Ernest came to my house and we only spoke in Spanish).

(There were two other friends at my house at the same time, David (English) and an American friend, with them I only spoke in English. So when I turned to them, I only spoke in English to them because I identified them as English speakers. My brain associates people by their language. This person speaks Spanish so I won’t get confused if I speak to him or her only in Spanish. My friend Valerio was also at my house and I spoke to him in Italian. This way, I don’t get confused. What does happen is that if a certain person suddenly switches languages, I can get confused but this is only with people who speak lots of languages. With Richard, I am used to switching languages).

(But in general, if there are 10 native speakers who speak 10 different languages and I speak to each of them in their language, I don’t get confused. If we all speak at the same time and one says one thing in Russian and the other responds in Spanish, then I could get confused if there are two similar languages like Spanish and Portuguese right after each other,. But usually I like to speak to one person in one language. This is what I usually do. I identify the language with the person).

(When I was back in California, people asked me why I was going to Poland for three days. I was in Sarajevo before this. I told them, “You know it’s rare for me to have the opportunity to speak as I think in different languages. With Richard I share 7 languages and with Luca, six. So I can mix up all of languages and you will, hopefully understand me when I speak.)

(This is such a rarity for me. When I was reading Michael Erard’s book, “Babel no More”, he said that there are polyglots who have this auto-censorship in their heads. So when they are thinking of something in a particular language, they have to figure out who will understand them. This one doesn’t understand me. That person doesn’t understand me, etc. So they are always translating. I always had this dream to be able to talk to people as I think. So I am very happy to meet you two because I can just…)

(At home in Macedonia, I also don’t have to censor myself because I can speak in English, Spanish, German, Macedonian or French with my wife and daughter. I can do this without a problem. But with you and Luca, it’s very pleasant to speak to other people with whom I can speak in lots of different languages. When I was a kid in England, this wasn’t possible).

(Of course. It is very pleasant to speak to people like you two because we can speak in many languages.With you, with you and with you… If I can speak in one language with a person, it is pleasant. In general, it’s great to speak in different languages).

27 comments

Fascinating chat. I think level of fluency has a lot to do with it. I speak French fluently so my brain recognizes it as a separate thing. I’ve learned some Italian and now I am studying Arabic. In the beginning, if I couldn’t think of a word fast enough in Arabic, my brain would grab it in Italian, but never in French. It happens less now.

Hi, I’m romanian liveing in Italy , well i think your youtub videos are great. I’m interested in learning new languages ,even italian better, i do speak Italian , English, Spagnolo . I find your accent very interesting becose you do a very good job with the accent

It’s just amazing how the three of you can and do talk different languages. I have always thought to be talented in languages and that is the reason I got lazy and stopped studying/learning (“oh well, I’ll just figure things out” lol). I’m quite fluent in Estonian (mother tongue), English, Italian and good, but not fluent, in Russian and Spanish, also have studied German, but you guys just make me envy! :P If I polish my other languages, will you include me to your adorable group? heheee:)

I started out with Spanish and when I started to take Italian lessons, it was soooo hard for me NOT to let Spanish take over. Now that I’m good in Italian, it has gotten dominant and now I’m having difficulty to speak Spanish without Italian “molto”‘s and “tanto”‘s intruding the Spanish “mucho”‘s, hehee. But I never mix up Estonian, English or Italian, those three are so dominant and have found their area in my brain, just like you said. I have to find place for other languages too :)

By the way, Luca, I’m curious – you say you’re Roman, but in this video to me you sounded much more like a vicentino or romagnolo or something. Is that intentional (just like Susanna said you changed it up?:))

How did you learn so many lganguages ??? You learned by your own? How ?? Im just impressed by your knowledge? If you do learn by your self , could you recommend me resources like books , webs or something?

They belong to the same language family which means that they have a similar structure and vocabulary. No language is “easy” to learn, but it is surelyeasier to learn Serbian/Croatian, Polish, Bulgarian Czech etc for a Russian native speaker. L

Hello Luca,my name is Bogdan,and last year,I fell in love with the french literature,my dream was to read Sartre,Cioran and Baudelaire in french,so I started to learn it. And I did it.The problem is,I don’t remember how I did it.Now am I trying to learn german,but some of the thing that I’ve done during my french learning period don’t work here.I didn’t learn it with grammar,I just bought a book with verb conjugation,and I knew those,using a kindle dictionary and reading some newspapers.What metod would you recommend me for german ? I know the german language was the first one you’ve learned.I absolutely hate grammar,I am a romanian native speaker,so my language has some grammar issues,but I don’t want to destroy my moral starting with the german grammar.Can you help me ? Thanks